System and Method for Managing a Hybrid Compute Environment

ABSTRACT

Disclosed are systems, hybrid compute environments, methods and computer-readable media for dynamically provisioning nodes for a workload. In the hybrid compute environment, each node communicates with a first resource manager associated with the first operating system and a second resource manager associated with a second operating system. The method includes receiving an instruction to provision at least one node in the hybrid compute environment from the first operating system to the second operating system, after provisioning the second operating system, pooling at least one signal from the resource manager associated with the at least one node, processing at least one signal from the second resource manager associated with the at least one node and consuming resources associated with the at least one node having the second operating system provisioned thereon.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED PATENT APPLICATIONS

The present application is a continuation of U.S. Pat. Application Ser.No. 15/478,467 filed Apr. 4, 2017, which is a continuation of U.S. Pat.Application Ser. No. 14/833,673, filed Aug. 24, 2015, which is acontinuation of U.S. Pat. Application Ser. No. 14/513,589, filed Oct.14, 2014, which is a continuation of Ser. No. 12/023,722, filed Jan. 31,2008, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,863,143, issued Oct. 14, 2014, which is acontinuation-in-part of U.S. Pat. Application Ser. No. 11/276,852, filedon Mar. 16, 2006, and also a continuation-in-part of U.S. Pat.Application Ser. No. 11/276,853, filed on Mar. 16, 2006, and also acontinuation-in-part of U.S. Pat. Application Ser. No. 11/276,854, filedon Mar. 16, 2006, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,782,231, issued Jul. 15, 2014, andalso a continuation-in-part of U.S. Pat. Application Ser. No.11/276,855, filed on Mar. 16, 2006, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,631,130, issuedJan. 14, 2014, and also a continuation-in-part of U.S. Pat. ApplicationSer. No. 11/276,856, filed on Mar. 16, 2006, now U.S. Pat. No.7,698,430, issued Apr. 13, 2010, the content of which are incorporatedherein by reference in their entirety.

BACKGROUND 1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a hybrid compute environment such as acluster in a grid in which multiple different types of operating systemsexist on various nodes within the compute environment and moreparticularly to a system and method of managing automated provisioningwherein operating systems on one or more nodes may be automaticallyreprovisioned to be separate operating systems based on various factorssuch as needs associated with pending or predicted workload.

2. Introduction

A high performance computing (HPC) typically refers to the use ofparallel super computers and computer clusters that comprise multipleprocessors linked together in a single system with a commerciallyavailable interconnection. While a high level of technical skill istypically needed to organize and manage such systems, they can becreated with commodity components. Because of their flexibility andrelatively low cost, HPC systems increasingly dominate the world ofsuper computing. HPC has traditionally been dominated by the Linuxoperating system. However, experts predict that Microsoft.RTM.Windows-based data centers, clusters or compute environments may becomemore prevalent in the near future. This may be due to a variety offactors such as Microsoft’s.RTM. strong relationship with applicationvendors, many of whom have already ported their HPC applications toWindows Compute Cluster Server 2003 (CCS). Further, there is anincreasing demand for work group clusters which primarily involves amarket segment composed of Window users who are new to the HPC concept.As a result, HPC environments that strictly ran Linux in the past areexploring the options of Windows-based clustering. The Window/LinuxHybrid cluster reduces a Linux environment’s barriers to adoptingWindows in the HPC environment. However, there may be difficulty in theflexibility required when attempting to manage a hybrid environment inwhich some nodes may run a first computer operating system such as Linuxand other nodes may run a second operating system such as aWindows-based operating system. Accordingly, what is needed in the artis an improved method of managing a hybrid clustering environment.

FIG. 2A illustrates several different compute environments and also mayrepresent a single hybrid compute environment. A first environment 200may represent a separate compute environment or a portion of a hybridcompute environment. While the Linux operating system and aWindows-based operating system are discussed, it is contemplated thatthe present invention would relate to any first operating system that isdifferent from a second operating system. There are many different typesof operating systems such as a Macintosh operating system and so forththat are contemplated as within the scope of the present invention andthe use of the terms of Linux and Windows are only used inasmuch as theyare prevalent types of operating systems and enabling the flexibilitywithin these two types of operating systems triggered the development ofthe present invention.

Nodes 202 represent a first operating system, such as a Linux operatingsystem, that is managed by a first resource manager 204. As would beknown in the art, this first resource manager may are TORQUE, Platform’sLoad Sharing Facility (LSF), PBS Pro from Altair Engineering and soforth. These resource managers typically, as is known in the art, enablethe nodes 202 to communicate with a workload manager 206 that receivesjobs 208 that are submitted by users. Environment 210 represents aWindows-based environment (i.e., a second operating system) which againmay be a part of the same hybrid compute environment or a separateenvironment in which nodes 212 run a Windows-based operating system suchas Windows’ compute cluster server (CCS). A resource manager 214 for thesecond operating system enables a workload manager 216 to communicatewith the Windows-based nodes. Again, jobs 208 may be submitted throughthe workload manager 216 which communicates with the resource manager214 to enable the jobs to actually consume resources within theenvironment 210.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth inthe description which follows, and in part will be obvious from thedescription, or may be learned by practice of the invention. Thefeatures and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained bymeans of the instruments and combinations particularly pointed out inthe appended claims. These and other features of the present inventionwill become more fully apparent from the following description andappended claims, or may be learned by the practice of the invention asset forth herein.

The present invention addresses the deficiencies in the art with regardsto managing a hybrid compute environment. The ability to have a hybridWindows and Linux cluster increases the number of addressable users andimproves cluster efficiency. Recent developments in workload managementsoftware such as MOAB.RTM. from Cluster Resources, Inc., enables usersto increase their productivity and utilization and broaden their reachby tapping into the larger base of scientists and engineers who use aWindows-based system. Management software, such as the MOAB software,provides an intelligent scheduling policy engine to optimally determinewhen the operating system should be modified based on workload anddefined policies. When conditions are met, the management software cantrigger a change via a sites preferred operating system modificationtechnology such as diskfull or diskless provisioning, dual boot orvirtualization. For example, these methodologies are known to those ofskill in the art.

The invention comprises systems, compute environments, data centers,methods and computer readable media for managing workload in the hybridmulti-node compute environment wherein at least one node has a firstoperating system controlled by a first resource manager and at least onenode has a second operating system controlled by a second resourcemanager. The method includes establishing a policy of balancing nodes inthe compute environment between the first operating system and thesecond operating system, periodically analyzing the compute environmentto determine how well it aligns with the established policy and based onthe analysis, provisioning nodes in the compute environment to change atleast one node from the first operating system to the second operatingsystem or at least one node from the second operating system to thefirst operating system according to the established policy.

Another aspect of the invention is that the method involves dynamicallyprovisioning a node for a workload in the hybrid compute environment.Each node communicates with a first resource manager associated with thefirst operating system and a second resource manager associated with thesecond operating system. The method includes receiving an instructionfrom a workload manager to provision at least one node in a hybridcompute environment from a first operating system to the secondoperating system. After provisioning the second operating system, thesystem pools at least one signal from the first resource managerassociated with the at least one node and processes at least one signalfrom the second resource manager associated with the at least one nodeand enables the consumption of resources associated with the at leastone node having the second operating system provisioned thereon.

An example of this concept in practice would be if a ten node clusterhas a current state in which three nodes are provisioned with a Windowsoperating system and seven nodes are provisioned with a Linux-basedoperating system, assume that a job is submitted that would require fivenodes operating a Windows running system. A workload manager or othersoftware module would generate an instruction to provision two nodes inthe compute environment to the Linux operating system to the Windowsoperating system. The Linux nodes may be associated with resourcemanagers such as torque, LSF or PBS pro or as would be known in the art.The Windows-based nodes may be communicating with a Windows-basedresource manager. An issue occurs when reprovisioning operating systemswith regards to which resource manager to utilize and how a workloadmanager would manage various state signals or other information signalsfrom a resource manager associated with a status of a given node. Underthis example, each of the two nodes that are provisioned from a Linuxoperating system to a Windows operating system would each have resourcemanagers that may be associated with each node. However, when a Linuxoperating system is provisioned on a node, the Windows-based resourcemanager would not recognize the node and thus be sending state signalsthat might indicate that the node is down. However, the workload managerwould intelligently know that what is actually occurring is theprovisioning or the use of a separate operating system and wouldintelligently pool such state signals when an alternate operating systemis functional on a node. In this regard, the system, when reprovisioningfrom a Linux environment on several nodes to a Windows-basedenvironment, would switch from pooling state signals from aWindows-based resource manager to pooling the signals from a Linux-basedresource manager when the nodes are provisioned to a Windows-basedoperating system. The system performs the necessary translation,conflict litigation and conflict management inside the variousconflicting reports from the resource managers in order to automaticallytransition the appropriate number of nodes to the desired operatingsystem.

The pooled signals are intelligently ignored with regards to workloadbeing consumed but may be referenced or accessed by the workload managerto understand the capabilities and history of a given node to know whatoperating system may next be provisioned on that node and to maintain ahistory for the node for accounting or other analysis.

A hybrid cluster model according to the principle disclosed hereinconsolidates administration and centralizes job submission across bothoperating system platforms. Administrators can command both operatingsystem policies and workload from one unified console. The software orsystem operating as disclosed herein also makes the dual-operatingsystem nature of the cluster environment transparent and use by applyingapplication and workload information that insure job running on theoperating system without the end user needing to specify it.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In order to describe the manner in which the above-recited and otheradvantages and features of the invention can be obtained, a moreparticular description of the invention briefly described above will berendered by reference to specific embodiments thereof which areillustrated in the appended drawings. Understanding that these drawingsdepict only exemplary embodiments of the invention and are not thereforeto be considered to be limiting of its scope, the invention will bedescribed and explained with additional specificity and detail throughthe use of the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates the basic hardware components according to a systemembodiment;

FIG. 2A illustrates a prior art approach to hybrid clustering;

FIG. 2B illustrates an example environment according to an aspect of theinvention;

FIG. 3 illustrates another aspect of an environment according to anaspect of the invention;

FIG. 4 illustrates a method embodiment of the invention; and

FIG. 5 illustrates another method embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Various embodiments of the invention are discussed in detail below.While specific implementations are discussed, it should be understoodthat this is done for illustration purposes only. A person skilled inthe relevant art will recognize that other components and configurationsmay be used without parting from the spirit and scope of the invention.

With reference to FIG. 1 , an exemplary system includes ageneral-purpose computing device 100, including a processing unit (CPU)120 and a system bus 110 that couples various system componentsincluding the system memory such as read only memory (ROM) 140 andrandom access memory (RAM) 150 to the processing unit 120. Other systemmemory 130 may be available for use as well. It can be appreciated thatthe invention may operate on a computing device with more than one CPU120 or on a group or cluster of computing devices networked together toprovide greater processing capability. The system bus 110 may be any ofseveral types of bus structures including a memory bus or memorycontroller, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety ofbus architectures. A basic input/output (BIOS) stored in ROM 140 or thelike, may provide the basic routine that helps to transfer informationbetween elements within the computing device 100, such as duringstart-up. The computing device 100 further includes storage devices suchas a hard disk drive 160, a magnetic disk drive, an optical disk drive,tape drive or the like. The storage device 160 is connected to thesystem bus 110 by a drive interface. The drives and the associatedcomputer readable media provide nonvolatile storage of computer readableinstructions, data structures, program modules and other data for thecomputing device 100. The basic components are known to those of skillin the art and appropriate variations are contemplated depending on thetype of device, such as whether the device is a small, handheldcomputing device, a desktop computer, or a computer server.

Although the exemplary environment described herein employs the harddisk, it should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that othertypes of computer readable media which can store data that areaccessible by a computer, such as magnetic cassettes, flash memorycards, digital versatile disks, cartridges, random access memories(RAMs), read only memory (ROM), a cable or wireless signal containing abit stream and the like, may also be used in the exemplary operatingenvironment.

To enable user interaction with the computing device 100, an inputdevice 190 represents any number of input mechanisms, such as amicrophone for speech, a touch-sensitive screen for gesture or graphicalinput, keyboard, mouse, motion input, speech and so forth. The deviceoutput 170 can also be one or more of a number of output mechanismsknown to those of skill in the art. In some instances, multimodalsystems enable a user to provide multiple types of input to communicatewith the computing device 100. The communications interface 180generally governs and manages the user input and system output. There isno restriction on the invention operating on any particular hardwarearrangement and therefore the basic features here may easily besubstituted for improved hardware or firmware arrangements as they aredeveloped.

For clarity of explanation, the illustrative system embodiment ispresented as comprising individual functional blocks (includingfunctional blocks labeled as a “processor”). The functions these blocksrepresent may be provided through the use of either shared or dedicatedhardware, including, but not limited to, hardware capable of executingsoftware. For example the functions of one or more processors presentedin FIG. 1 may be provided by a single shared processor or multipleprocessors. (Use of the term “processor” should not be construed torefer exclusively to hardware capable of executing software.)Illustrative embodiments may comprise microprocessor and/or digitalsignal processor (DSP) hardware, read-only memory (ROM) for storingsoftware performing the operations discussed below, and random accessmemory (RAM) for storing results. Very large scale integration (VLSI)hardware embodiments, as well as custom VLSI circuitry in combinationwith a general purpose DSP circuit, may also be provided.

We next turn to FIG. 2B which illustrates a hybrid compute environmentaccording to an aspect of the present invention. In FIG. 2B, hybridenvironment 220 includes a number of nodes 202 that run a firstoperating system, such as Linux, and a second group of nodes 212 thatoperate a second operating system, such as a Windows-based operatingsystem. There may also be nodes which operate a third or fourthoperating system and the principles of the present invention clearlyencompass flexibility for an additional operating system according tothe needs of users in the environment. Each node has at least tworesource managers associated with it. The first resource manager 204 isconfigured to manage workload on nodes running the first operatingsystem. The second resource manager 214 is configured to manage workloadon nodes running a second operating system. As noted above, there may bea third, fourth and perhaps even more resource managers depending on thenumber of different types of operating systems. Furthermore, therecertainly may be different resource managers for a same type ofoperating system. For example, some Linux-based nodes may communicatewith a workload manager via LSF, while other Linux -based nodes maycommunicate with the workload manager via TORQUE and so forth. Thepresent disclosure enables a desired level of flexibility that can betransparent to end users. Feature 222 represents the intelligence of thepresent disclosure. It may operate as an interface between resourcemanagers and a workload manager or may represent modifications to theworkload manager. In essence, the particular location within the entireprocess of receiving jobs and actually consuming resources within acompute environment, it does not matter where particular functions occurin the various modules that communicate with one another in order toactually efficiently consume resources within the environment.Accordingly, module 222 is generically represents an interface between aworkload manager 224 and two or more resource managers 204, 214.

FIG. 3 further illustrates the general application of the use ofmultiple resource managers associated with each node. In this case, node302 is shown as having a communication link with the first resourcemanager 204 and the second resource manager 214. Similarly, nodes 304and 306 are each shown as having a communication link to a respectiveresource manager which each through the interface 222 communicates withthe workload manager 224.

As is known in the art, the resource managers actually monitor theresources in the compute environment, the jobs that will consumeresources and also take actions on the workload. The resource managerswould actually manage the process of cancelling a job or starting a jobon a particular node. Workflow management software such as MOAB,instructs the resource managers with regards to how to implementworkload in the environment. The present invention generally relates tothe creation of the interface 222 that talks to one or more resourcemanagers and enables the ability for a batch system itself tointelligently determine that a particular job requires a particularoperating system. The interface 222 maybe incorporated in whole or inpart with the workload manager 224. In this case, the system willdynamically provision the particular operating system and if necessarychange one node from running a first operating system back to a secondoperating system, while at the same time either activating, bring up orprocessing differently state information from a resource managerassociated with the second operating system and then running the jobtransparently to a user. This process involves translation, conflictmitigation and conflict management inside the conflicting reports fromresource managers 204, 214 because as the provisioning occurs, theresource managers associated with the first operating system will beginto send signals such as state signals that the node is down. However,the resource manager associated with the second operating system intowhich the node has been provisioned is going to start to send signalsthat the node is up and has particular attributes and is ready toconsume workload. Accordingly, the interface 222 mitigates and managesthe conflicting information such that the end user can simply, through acommon and well known interface, submit nodes into the computeenvironment and have workload consume resources within a hybrid computeenvironment in a transparent fashion.

In one aspect, signals from a node that is “down”, i.e., anotheroperating system is provisioned on the nodes, will be intelligentlypooled such that the latent information may be used for accounting,historical knowledge about the node and for information to aid inknowing what future operating system(s) may be provisioned on that node.

Dual booting has previously been a manual process and has rarely beenused in batch environments or data center environments and is a fairlystatic experience for people. For example, typically, the dual bootexperience is the act of installing multiple operating systems on asingle computer and then as a user boots up, enabling the ability tochoose which one to boot into. The present invention differs inasmuch asit is not a manual process and is an automated process that involves thevarious modules and software necessary to efficiently run a batchenvironment or data center environment. In one aspect, the system oruser may study policies or intelligence such that if a job comes in withcertain configurations or requirements, on-demand resources can beswitched and reprovisioned in order to run the right environment. As anexample, if a Windows job is submitted and the system cannot find enoughWindows nodes, the system can automatically provision Windows nodes andthen submit the job into the environment to consume thosenewly-provisioned resources.

Other aspects can be employed to intelligently manage the hybridenvironment. For example, an administrator may determine that he or shewants to maintain a certain number of nodes in a particular type ofoperating system. If the system then ever has a node which isreprovisioned from a first operating system to a second operatingsystem, the system can then automatically reprovision other nodes withinthe hybrid environment to comply with the policy of maintaining acertain number of nodes that run a certain operating system. Policiesmay be established and followed for any purpose. For example, tomaintain QoS per a service level agreement (SLA), for a certain numberof nodes for customer X, based on time of day, and so forth. Any policyrelated to the management of resources may be established and followedin the hybrid environment. The system maximizes workload throughput witha single self optimizing system that can balance the number of nodesrunning particular operating systems against user/group and workloadservice levels.

The policies may be fault tolerance policies or heightened availabilitypolicies associated with failures of compute resources, networkresources or other resources, reprovisioning to pools to handle suchrequirements or to ensure that on-demand resources are available,provisioning for a specific workload but also for handling situations inviolations or threshold scheduling requirements. Reprovisioning may bedone for a predicted violation of a threshold or a policy requirement.An example of this is where, if based on an analysis, there is aprediction that there may be a violation of a policy requirement, suchas an on-demand environment that is needed, or a particular parameter ina service level agreement is not going to be met based on some eventssuch as a failure, current workload issue or predicted workload issue,that an automatic reprovisioning may occur and may be implemented inadvance of the predicted failure or other predicted event such that theevent does not occur. The necessary resources are provisioned andprepared in order to meet and maintain a policy or a service levelagreement in any particular instance. Another example of this involvesmonitoring the environment and future workload as well as historicalinformation in order to identify a prediction of a certain future eventthat may violate a policy or a service level agreement. In such a case,the system institutes or automatically submits an instruction, such as asystem job or other kind of provisioning instruction, which may triggera reprovisioning in order to avoid the occurrence of the predicted eventabsence the reprovisioning.

There are other aspects of managing the compute environment that may beemployed. For example, an administrator or a policy may be establishedto enable a certain type of response time or enable a certain volume ofthroughput or manage backlog with a certain performance criteria and soforth. For example, if the backlog rises above or below a particulartarget, then the system can automatically begin to reprovision nodes toprocess the backlog and reestablish a particular balance according todesired parameters. For example, if the user wants to maintain aproportional balance between the two groups of nodes running differentoperating systems. The administrator may establish that in the hybridenvironment, Windows jobs should only wait 20% longer than Linux-basedjobs and should continually balance operating systems on various nodesto maintain that policy requirement.

Another aspect that is beneficial according to the ability of thepresent invention is that the system can schedule maintenance. Forexample, instead of bringing the entire hybrid environment to a halt,the system can actually schedule a job as a provisioning step. Theworkload manager can intelligently place the operating system switchoperation between consumption jobs and schedule that both for now andfor the future so that it has a minimal impact on the system. These maybe accomplished via dynamic service jobs which use intelligence behindthe scenes to provide information regarding a hierarchal schedulingwhere the system can schedule jobs on top of jobs and enable aparticular resource pool within the environment to either grow or shrinkaccording to policies. On top of these dynamic service jobs are theactual compute jobs that are running Thus, the submission of aprovisioning step that is associated with a job or a system job may beaccomplished using the principles disclosed herein.

Furthermore, other aspects may be employed such as setting up anarbitrary calendar and determining how the configuration of the hybridenvironment should be over a timeframe that piggybacks on a standingreservation capability to allow the mixture to be implemented in theenvironment. For example, the system may start Saturday morning at 2:00am to reprovision the environment in a certain manner to change thebalance between Windows and Linux operating systems inasmuch as there isa standing reservation for a particular job (such as a weather analysisfor a television station) that requires more Linux-based nodes than areconfigured under the standard policy. Accordingly, the administration ofthe hybrid environment can enable any type of arbitrary event to triggerprovisioning. If a cybase database server goes down and then the policyrequires the system to add four more nodes over to one pool of nodes asopposed to another pool, one can implement jobs or instructions toperform any kind of provisioning action which can be triggered by anyevent.

One benefit of the present disclosure is that from an end user’s pointof view, or from an administrators or managers point of view, themanager can utilize a single cohesive resource, which may be theworkload manager 224, which can combine the policy space, the singlecohesive accounting space and single management space in order togreatly simplify and eliminate human interaction to obtain a highlyflexible and efficient utilization of the hybrid environment.Furthermore, the end user can have a single common submission and jobmanagement space for all of his or her workload which can look unifiedto everybody and which also takes advantage of the provisioningtechnology. Therefore, users having a tool for Windows submissions cancontinue to use their Windows submission tool which can differ from anend user’s Linux submission tool but which can both provide access tothe hybrid compute environment from these familiar interfaces forindividual users.

Furthermore, users can use an application programming interface (API), acommand line up, a web-based or standard desktop GUI and can alsocontinue to submit directly to the resource manager by bypassing theworkload manager entirely if they choose. Another benefit is that thereare no wasted cycles in the approach disclosed herein. Because theoperating systems are automatically switched back and forth, there areno wasted cycles in that there would be no or less cycles in which anoperating system is idle. For example, often there are concerns fromusers that they do not know what kind of operating system the jobs aregoing to get and the administrator may not know what the job mix isgoing to be and therefore, do not know if it is going to changeday-to-day or hour-to-hour during the same time of the day. These arecommon challenges that administrators have. However, using the interfaceor the workload manager according to the principles disclosed herein,the system can automatically provide the provisioning and understand theworkload in order to relieve an administrator of these types ofconcerns.

There are a myriad of mechanisms and opportunities to control theenvironment using the principles herein. For example, the user may havethe ability to specify the rate at which the workload manager wouldautomatically adapt the clusters. For example, the workload manager caninstruct the system to optimize itself once an hour, once a minute, oncea day, once a week, based on a detected event and so forth. In thisrespect, the system may, at the appointed time, evaluate a historyassociated with the consumption of resources, the history associatedwith job submissions, current workload, current network environmentparameters and make an adjustment that can results in an optimum balancein a performance matrix associated with the environment. Thus, ratherthan setting a strict balancing between nodes operating a firstoperating system and nodes operating a second operating system, a policycould be established to optimize certain parameters which enables thesystem to be flexible in balancing the proportion of nodes operating afirst operating system and a second operating system (or third andfourth operating system as well) according to its evaluation. Thus,historical use, current activity and pending workload can all beevaluated at a certain time or a variable time in order to provideoptimum balance in the environment.

As has been noted above, when switching from one operating system toanother operating system, the system can use virtualization, disk-fullor diskless provisioning or any other known mechanism which may involveswitching from one operating system to another. The workload managerwill schedule a provisioning operation preferably using a system job.The system job may indicate, for example, to switch node 13 from aWindows operating system to a Linux operating system. However, thesystem knows that there is a job running for another seven minutes inthe Windows environment so it is going to schedule this job to start inseven minutes. The system job that is scheduled is an operation thatwill instruct the system either to reboot into a particular image or tonet boot into a particular image at this time or actually start aprovisioning operation to actually reinstall the operating system over anew image. In this example, the original job will complete and thesubsequent system job is initiated and actually makes the change. Whenthe change is made, switching from Windows to Linux, a node Daemon suchas the CCS Daemon is reported as down because it is no longer operatinginasmuch as it is now running the Linux operating system. While the CCScontinues to report to the workload manager that the node is down, theworkload manager is intelligent enough to understand and ignore or poolthat state information signal because it is communicating with adifferent resource manager associated with the Linux operating systemthat reports that that is now up and running In other words, theinterface to the workload manager or the workload manager has theintelligence to communicate with multiple resource managers andunderstands which resource managers to trust. Thus, the workload managerusing the specialized settings and intelligence setting disclosedherein, to pay attention only to the resource manager that isappropriate. Thus, all the state information, attribute information andeverything else that provides information via the resource managerassociated with the newly-provisioned node is communicated andintelligently utilized to continue to enable the submission of jobs inthe newly provisioned node or nodes.

Thus, an important aspect of the present invention is informing theschedule of an appropriately configured system job to indicate that itis time to switch operating systems in such a manner that it is seamlessto the end user and administrator and hiding all the “down nodes” andremapping all of the attributes and retaining all the accountingstatistics across this changed environment occurs.

With these principles in mind, next we discuss FIG. 4 which illustratesa method of managing workload in a hybrid multi-node compute environmentwherein at least one node has a first operating system controlled by afirst resource manager and at least one node has a second operatingsystem controlled by a second resource manager. The method includesestablishing a policy of balancing nodes in the compute environmentbetween the first operating system and the second operating system(402), periodically analyzing the compute environment to determine howwell it is aligned with the established policy (404) and based on theanalysis, provisioning nodes in the compute environment to change atleast one node from the first operating system to the second operatingsystem or at least one node from the second operating system to thefirst operating system according to the established policy (406). Theanalysis may be based on at least one of historical use, currentactivity, pending workload and anticipated requirements. Other factorssuch as anticipated faults or violations of policies may triggerreprovisioning. For example, the anticipated requirements may be basedon predicted workload requirements according to existing and/oranticipated reservations for the consumption of resources. Theanticipated requirements may not be related to workload or predictedworkload. For example, a particular architecture may be needed in thecompute environment for a particular future purpose. Thus, a futurerequirement may relate to the provisioning of an environment orstructure in the future. For example, an environment may be needed fortesting, bench marking, failure analysis, maintenance or any specificuse that differs from batch processing. The environment may also beneeded to provide data center services or persistent services. Anotherexample of the policy is to provide load balancing based on an amount ofbacklog associated with what type of response time each particularpartition. Response time may relate to throughput, load, calendar,particular selectable workload, failures and so forth. Thus, the policyor policies may be related to a broad number of factors. Preferably, theprovisioning occurs by a workload manager issuing a system job thatinstructs the resource manager to provision at least one node accordingto a provisioning policy. The provisioning policy may cause a system jobto provision at least one node in between scheduled compute jobs. Thisis an example that was eluded to above wherein the system job may waitseven minutes until the completion of a consumption job occurs at whichpoint the provisioning can occur.

There may be other aspects of this as well wherein reservations or thebalancing of compute jobs may be adjusted in order to enable theprovisioning. For example, assume that one compute job is currentlybeing processed and is scheduled to complete in ten minutes and anothercompute job is scheduled to start eleven minutes from now. Theprovisioning that is associated with the system job would require threeminutes to switch operating systems, then the method may involveperforming slight modifications to scheduled compute jobs in order toenable the necessary time to complete a provisioning associated with asystem job. Thus, a system job is used as the mechanism to schedule andmanage the provisioning in-line with all of the workload policies thatare currently in place. This provides an integrated method ofaccomplishing provisioning that complies with all established policiesfor the environment.

In another aspect of the invention, a method of dynamically provisioninga node for a workload in a hybrid compute environment having a pluralityof nodes is disclosed. In the dynamic computing environment, each nodecommunicates with a first resource manager having a first operatingsystem and a second resource manager associated with a second operatingsystem. The method is illustrated in FIG. 5 . The method includesreceiving an instruction from a workload manager or other software orhardware component or module to provision at least one node in a hybridcompute environment from the first operating system to the secondoperating system (502). After provisioning the second operating system,the system intelligently filters, pools or ignores at least one signalfrom the first resource manager associated with the at least one node(504) and processes at least one signal from the second resource managerassociated with the at least one node (506). If multiple resourcemanagers were simultaneously reporting two different states for the samephysical object or node, then they are in conflict because one would beactive and one would not be active. The system is intelligent to ignorecertain data that is in conflict with other data. Thus, the system knowsto intelligently filter pool, or ignore certain signals from an inactiveresource manager. For example, state information is important for theactive and non-active resource manager. Other data includes features,capabilities, queries, attributes, policies, rule sets associated withnodes and with one or more of the resource managers for a node. Thus,for the disabled operating system, some information is still needed.Configuration, capabilities, supported operating systems, what softwareand operating systems the node can switch back to or be provisioned toand so forth. The intelligent filter preferably involves poolinginactive node signals and data for historical, accounting andreprovisioning knowledge. The pool may be termed a latency pool for adown node. The pool may switch from being latent to active depending onwhether the operating system associated with the pool (and theparticular resource Manager) is provisioned on the node.

The system identifies what attributes should persist such that theworkload manager with its intelligence can know if it switches back toanother environment for a node, that there is a collection ofattributes, policies and constraints associated with the environment toknow if it is a good decision. However, the workload manager knows thatthe collection of information is latent information about the attribute,policies and constraints for a node. This information is known to onlyeffect the environment after the appropriate provisioning takes place.In this regard, the system conceptually places the information in alatent pool of information that can be accessed if the system determinesthat it is a good idea to reprovision the node. The attributeinformation is redirected and isolated the information for a subset ofevaluation that relates to whether or not provisioning is a good stepand whether or not subsequent workload would fit on a particular node.In one example, the system generates a list of possible images orpossible versions of a resource. The system knows a node is active withcurrent operating systems, job queue, set of features and policies--allof which are active for workload that consumes a node’s resources. But,if the system were to flip a switch to provision the node differently,then that new node picks up a new operating system, but also picks upanother collection of attributes, policies, etc., that are from alatency pool. Therefore, the system maintains these lists of attributepools for each potential operating system. Each node may have one, two,three or more latency pools of information.

The compute environment may then consume resources associated with theat least one node having the second operating system provisioned thereon(508). As noted above, the workload manager can receive andintelligently filter or pool into a latency pool at least one signalfrom the first resource manager associated with the at least one nodeand the workload manager can then process at least one signal from thesecond resource manager to manage the consumption of resources on the atleast one node having the second operating system provisioned thereon.The signals relate to states, attributes, policies and constraints forthat node when switching operating systems. The system will begin toutilize data from a latency pool to an active pool as well as begin topool data from the outgoing operating system to a latency pool. Thus,the system knows how to switch between latency pool of information andan active pool of information. Once a node is provisioned and an activepool of information is associated with the nodes, then workload beginsto be scheduled onto that space. There is always an understanding thatif the system were to schedule a change step, or a node provisioningstep, that associated with that change workload be a change in theattribute pool.

In one aspect, the second operating system or first operating system maybe a Microsoft.RTM. operating system. The method may further includeremapping attributes and retaining accounting statistics from the firstoperating system to the second operating system. In this regard, whenthe system remaps attributes it does not disregard statistics. Thesystem maintains operating system level statistics as well as physicalnode statistics, such that the system can maintain a view of thestatistics for a particular resource or a particular node through itslife cycle. Thus, as a particular node through its life cycle andswitching between operating systems, the system can maintain anunderstanding of the use of that resource through its life cycle. Inanother aspect, the method includes performing a translation, conflictmitigation and conflict management associated with different informationfrom the first resource manager and the second resource manager. This isassociated with how each resource manager reports information in aslightly different manner. For example, a resource manager associatedwith a Microsoft.RTM. operating system may report attributes andstatistics according to different parameters from a resource managerthat might be associated with a Linux operating system. Thus, there isan intelligent layer either built into the workload manager 224 or intoan intelligent front-end layer 222 that performs a service such that theworkload manager decision making policies have common attributes uponwhich to make decisions for future provisioning as well as workloadallocation. In other words, there is a filtering and processing that canoccur such that there is a harmonization or a normalization of variousattributes such that the view seen by the workload manager isconsistent. A simplified example of this may be if one workload managerwere to report statistics and attributes according to a metric systemand another resource manager were to report statistics according to theEnglish system, then there would need to be harmonization such that thestatistics ultimately seen by the workload manager are normalized andtherefore consistent. Clearly, this is a conceptual example in howharmonization of the various statistics may be done.

An aspect of the disclosure enables a workload manager or anotherinterface to manager workload in the hybrid compute environment using asingle cohesive resource space, a single cohesive policy space and asingle cohesive accounting space such that there is a single andcohesive management space as well. Thus, an objective of the presentdisclosure is to provide a simplified environment with the manager oradministrator in which a single method for submission managementmonitoring of workload and a single interface and single space in whichall policies are defined, configured, controlled and optimized and asingle space in which records are kept for accounting processing eventhough the images and the compute environment are constantly changingand various nodes are being reprovisioned into a different operatingsystem then they were previously running Therefore, the presentinvention enables a commonality to exist and can manager a superset ofall these spaces.

In a virtualization scenario, the state data that is communicated to aresource manager operates essentially as disclosed herein. All data fromeach operating system exists entirely within their space. Thus, a firstoperating system may be Linux and communicates data to its associatedresource manager. A second operating system layered above the first alsocommunicates its data to its resource manager.

In one aspect, the host operating system in virtualization does notmaintain a separate resource manager. Each layered operating system thenhas a respective resource manager. Alternately, a monitor-only resourcemanager may communicate with the host operating system. The monitor-onlyresource manager which would report basic information such as that thenode is operational, healthy, and capable of doing work andvirtualization. The monitor-only resource manager would not be used tosubmit workload to the node and would not be used to modify ormanipulate it. The reports for the monitor-only would be related tohealth-checks for the node and to report that the virtualization isgood. Virtualization may be employed using Hyper-V within Windows Server2008, VMWare, Xen or via other approaches as well as would be known.

A provisioning resource manager may be used by a workload manager tomanage the actual provisioning or changing of the operating systems on anode, the changing of the software stack for a newly provisioned node,etc.

Embodiments within the scope of the present invention may also includecomputer-readable media for carrying or having computer-executableinstructions or data structures stored thereon. Such computer-readablemedia can be any available media that can be accessed by a generalpurpose or special purpose computer. By way of example, and notlimitation, such non-transitory computer-readable media can compriseRAM, ROM, EEPROM, CD-ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic diskstorage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which canbe used to carry or store desired program code means in the form ofcomputer-executable instructions or data structures. When information istransferred or provided over a network or another communicationsconnection (either hardwired, wireless, or combination thereof) to acomputer, the computer properly views the connection as a transitory ornon-transitory computer-readable medium as the medium will dictate.Thus, any such connection is properly termed a computer-readable medium.Combinations of the above should also be included within the scope ofthe computer-readable media.

Computer-executable instructions include, for example, instructions anddata which cause a general purpose computer, special purpose computer,or special purpose processing device to perform a certain function orgroup of functions. Computer-executable instructions also includeprogram modules that are executed by computers in stand-alone or networkenvironments. Generally, program modules include routines, programs,objects, components, and data structures, etc. that perform particulartasks or implement particular abstract data types. Computer-executableinstructions, associated data structures, and program modules representexamples of the program code means for executing steps of the methodsdisclosed herein. The particular sequence of such executableinstructions or associated data structures represents examples ofcorresponding acts for implementing the functions described in suchsteps. Program modules may also comprise any tangible computer-readablemedium in connection with the various hardware computer componentsdisclosed herein, when operating to perform a particular function basedon the instructions of the program contained in the medium.

Those of skill in the art will appreciate that other embodiments of theinvention may be practiced in network computing environments with manytypes of computer system configurations, including personal computers,hand-held devices, multi-processor systems, microprocessor-based orprogrammable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframecomputers, and the like. Embodiments may also be practiced indistributed computing environments where tasks are performed by localand remote processing devices that are linked (either by hardwiredlinks, wireless links, or by a combination thereof) through acommunications network. In a distributed computing environment, programmodules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices.

Although the above description may contain specific details, they shouldnot be construed as limiting the claims in any way. Other configurationsof the described embodiments of the invention are part of the scope ofthis invention. Accordingly, the appended claims and their legalequivalents should only define the invention, rather than any specificexamples given.

1-20. (canceled)
 21. An apparatus comprising: a processor; and a memoryincluding instructions that when executed by the processor cause theprocessor to: receive an instruction to switch a computing node of aplurality of computing nodes from a first operating system to a secondoperating system, wherein a resource manager associated with one of thefirst and second operating systems indicates that the computing node isdown and a resource manager associated with the other one of the firstand second operating systems indicates that the computing node isactive; ignore the indication that the computing node is down; andtransition the computing node from the first operating system to thesecond operating system.
 22. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein theinstructions when executed further cause the processor to instruct thecomputing node to consume resources associated with the second operatingsystem.
 23. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein the instructions whenexecuted further cause the processor to allocate resources associatedwith the second operating system to the computing node.
 24. Theapparatus of claim 21, wherein the instructions when executed furthercause the processor to identify attributes to provision the computingnode with an operating system different from the second operatingsystem.
 25. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein the instructions whenexecuted further cause the processor to generate a list of possibleversions of a resource.
 26. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein theinstructions when executed further cause the processor to generate atleast one list of attribute pools.
 27. The apparatus of claim 26,wherein the at least one list of attribute pools is accessible when thecomputing node is provisioned with the second operating system.
 28. Theapparatus of claim 21, wherein the instructions when executed furthercause the processor to receive a first signal from the first resourcemanager that indicates a status of the computing node.
 29. A methodcomprising: receiving an instruction to switch a computing node of aplurality of computing nodes from a first operating system to a secondoperating system, wherein a resource manager associated with one of thefirst and second operating systems indicates that the computing node isdown and a resource manager associated with the other one of the firstand second operating systems indicates that the computing node isactive; ignoring the indication that the computing node is down; andtransitioning the computing node from the first operating system to thesecond operating system.
 30. The method of claim 29, further comprisingallocating data relating to a first signal from a first resource managerassociated with the first operating system.
 31. The method of claim 30,wherein the first signal from the first resource manager indicates astatus of the computing node.
 32. The method of claim 30, wherein thedata is allocated to a latency pool.
 33. The method of claim 30, whereinthe first signal from the first resource manager comprises a state, anattribute, a policy, or a constraint.
 34. The method of claim 30,further comprising processing a second signal from a second resourcemanager.
 35. The method of claim 34, further comprising instructing, inresponse to processing the second signal from the second resourcemanager, the computing node to consume resources associated with thesecond operating system.
 36. A non-transitory computer readable mediumhaving instructions stored thereon that, upon execution by a computingdevice, causes the computing device to perform operations comprising:receiving an instruction to switch a computing node of a plurality ofcomputing nodes from a first operating system to a second operatingsystem, wherein a resource manager associated with one of the first andsecond operating systems indicates that the computing node is down and aresource manager associated with the other one of the first and secondoperating systems indicates that the computing node is active; ignoringthe indication that the computing node is down; and transitioning thecomputing node from the first operating system to the second operatingsystem.
 37. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim36, further comprising instructions that upon execution by the computingdevice, causes the processor to instruct the computing node to consumeresources associated with the second operating system.
 38. Thenon-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 36, furthercomprising instructions that upon execution by the computing device,causes the computing device to allocate resources associated with thesecond operating system to the computing node.
 39. The non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium of claim 36, further comprisinginstructions that, upon execution by the computing device, causes thecomputing device to allocating data regarding status of the computingnode.
 40. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim39, wherein the data is allocated to a latency pool.